NATO's New Eyes in the Sky
- 09/24/2013http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ELM2X3gCFlI/RpxXWtK5XtI/AAAAAAAAVS4/HXufot07TAg/s200/global_hawk_xxl.jpg

NATO's Alliance Ground Surveillance system is expected to come online in 2017. Today, Michael Sirak describes some of its features, which are widely expected to improve the situational awareness, intelligence gathering capabilities and interoperability of member states. NATO is scheduled to have in place its first-ever Alliance asset for collecting strategic intelligence: the Alliance Ground Surveillance system. The fleet of five Global Hawk remotely piloted aircraft will carry a sophisticated radar capable of monitoring the situation on the ground from high overhead, including the movement of objects of interest such as military vehicles. The Global Hawks will transmit synthetic aperture radar images—which look like photographs—and tracking data on the moving objects down to NATO intelligence analysts. Read more